


i know and i confess

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, i really don't know if i did it right, i tried my hand at songfic, it's all mamma mia!'s fault if we're being honest here, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 16:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Jealous fools will suffer, yesI know and I confessOnce I lost my way when something good had just begunLesson learned, it’s history, when all is said and done"orI watched Mamma Mia! for the umpteenth time this week and this happened.





	i know and i confess

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is all Mamma Mia!'s fault (both films wreck me). Because of that, it's also ABBA's fault.
> 
> This follows "When all is said and done" (which just so happens to be the only song where Pierce Brosnan's singing doesn't make my ears bleed... make of that what you will). It's a loose adaptation, because a 26-year-old and a 28-year-old are nowhere near experiencing the same life events as two middle-aged (now) married people on a Greek island.
> 
> (The lyrics are what are sung on the film soundtrack, which is essentially a mashup of the original and the rewritten version. They fit T&S the best.)
> 
> Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think :')

_Here’s to us, one more toast, and then we’ll pay the bill_

_Deep inside, both of us can feel the autumn chill_

_Birds of passage, you and me_

_We fly instinctively_

_When the summer’s over and the dark clouds hide the sun_

_Neither you nor I’m to blame, when all is said and done_

 

The lights are low at Foxy, and the place is uncommonly full for a Wednesday evening. He’s leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table so he can hear her better over the music and chatter that surrounds them, upbeat and incessant. He’s hanging on to her every word — when is he not? — but tonight, he has to work a little harder to catch what she’s saying.

(He realizes his mother would throw a fit if she saw him like this, because _Scottie, we keep our elbows off the table when we’re eating!_ but he’s twenty-eight and a fully grown adult, so breaking her dinner rules for a night won’t kill him. But, by god, nobody tell Alma. If she finds out, she’ll send him a death glare all the way from Ilderton.)

The tea light in the middle of the table flickers, the light illuminating her face and highlighting each and every one of her freckles. He wants to count them all, map them out and play connect the dots with the hidden patterns on her skin. He finds his gaze flicking upward to her long lashes and the green, gorgeous green of her eyes.

In candlelight, they’re as dark as pine trees, flecked with specks of emerald. As precious as the gems, he thinks, if not more so. She’s wearing barely any makeup, save for mascara and a light dusting of powder, and he _loves_ that he gets to see her like this.

Unfiltered. Open. 

_Trusting._

They moved to Montreal to start training and return to “the world of competitive ice dance” only weeks prior — Virtue and Moir, making a go at it for another Olympics — but haven’t told the world yet, are only just getting their asses back in shape (him more than her) and reacquainting themselves with rigorous training … and each other.

After Sochi, things had fallen apart, as much as they could when they were still obligated to joint media appearances and fundraisers and skating shows. After Sochi, _he_ had fallen apart, desperately trying to relive the teenage years he never had and effectively drinking himself into some sense of self-acceptance.

Really, he had been down a deep hole, but he wasn’t about to admit that to himself.

He has to credit Kaitlyn and his brothers and his parents for getting him out of it, for sitting him down or lending an open ear, for giving him janitor shifts at the rink when it had gotten terribly out of hand. (His mother had done that twice, handed him a mop and told him to make himself useful. The tactic had been as humiliating as it had been effective.)

If his family were the ones to get him out of the hole, Tessa was the person who helped him find himself again afterward.

She was the one to force him to take a long, hard look at himself. At the time, the only thing that still made sense was Tessa and skating. He thinks those two things will make sense to him until the day he dies, that they’re constants in his life — like breathing.

When he’d hit rock-bottom, Tessa hadn’t coddled him like so many others had. She hadn’t ever expected anything less of him than his best, had always held him to the standards she knew he held himself to.

And when he wasn’t being that person, she was by his side, not to take pity on him, but to help him get back to that place, to a version of Scott Moir he could be proud of. 

“Earth to Scott!”

His head jerks upward and his eyes meet Tessa’s; she looks like she’s on the brink of laughter.

“You alright there?”

He must’ve gone off in his own thoughts for quite a while there, not realizing, and he lets out a self-deprecating chuckle. He nods and reaches across the table to squeeze her hand. _Yeah, he’s gonna be alright. And she’s the reason for it._

They spend the rest of dinner chatting about everything and nothing, about the fact that Foxy might become a mainstay of theirs (it just opened up a few weeks ago, and Scott has to admit he likes it, though he tries not to chalk that up to the decidedly _romantic_ ambiance of the place) about the upcoming holidays, about whether or not Patch is hiding some deep, dark secret behind that frighteningly poised exterior of his.

The cheque arrives, they take their last sips of wine, and split the bill like they always do. Fifty-fifty, straight down the middle. Sort of like their partnership is — in an ideal world. Equal input, joint output.

Except he can’t quite shake the feeling that there had been so many times over the past few years where their partnership had been anything but _equal_.

During both surgeries.

When Tessa’s intuition had been correct regarding Marina’s wavering loyalties, but he’d stubbornly ignored her.

When they had to create their own narrative, which meant her commitment to the damn reality show and his apparent apathy toward the whole thing.

And then, when it all failed anyway, his spiral post-Sochi.

He has to snap himself out of his thoughts when Tessa puts her wallet in her bag and makes a move toward the coat rack by the entrance. He hopes he hasn’t seemed to distracted all night.

They start the walk back to Saint-Henri and their neighbouring apartments, his arm draped over her shoulder, her head resting on his. Bundled up in winter coats, they’re taking in the city lights and trying their hardest not to get frostbite.

“Do you think we’re insane?” she mumbles, her voice muffled by his thick parka.

“What?” He has to chuckle, giving her a squeeze.

“Scott,” she says matter-of-factly, bringing them to a stop under a streetlight. With the sun already set, it looks like the beam of yellow light was made specifically to provide them with a spotlight for this conversation. “We’re not young anymore.”

“Way to remind a guy of his old age,” he jokes, feigning offence at her statement.

“You know what I mean,” she says, gently jabbing him in the ribs. “We’re not getting any younger, and the Olympics are still two years away.” She gets quiet, looks down at the ground and scuffs her boot on the pavement before continuing. “It’s not too late to back out, you know. We haven’t announced yet, we can tell Marie and Patch we’re sorry but we can’t—”

“Hey, hey, kiddo, stop that.” He tips her chin upward with his finger, forcing her to meet his gaze. She looks so small like this, almost fragile, her coat and scarf nearly swallowing her whole, even though he’s certain she’s the strongest person he’s ever met. He can’t bear to see her like this. 

“I’m in,” he says. He needs her to know this, trust him on this. “I’m in one hundred percent. For the early mornings, the late nights, the truly painful gym sessions, the technical drills, the awful meal plans, all of it. I’m in if you’re in. Okay?”

“You don’t think we’re crazy for doing this?”

He snorts. “T, anyone who becomes an ice dancer has to be a little bit crazy. I think we’re just the right amount of insane.”

She steps forward so he can wrap her in a hug and pull her close. It’s instinct, their reliance on physical contact as a means of reassurance, but he finds himself taking advantage just a bit and leaning down so his nose brushes her hair and he can inhale a lungful of her strawberry shampoo. 

“Thank you,” she mumbles into the front of his coat.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s just you and me, T. _Together_.”

“Hmmm.”

“Let’s get you home.”

The rest of the walk is quiet, and he realizes, not for the first time in his life, that this is the kind of quiet he craves. Just him and Tessa, companionable silence between them. He thinks he’d die a happy man if he got to spend time like this with her every day.

He also thinks that might be saying more about him and his feelings for Tessa than he currently cares to admit.

 

_It's been there, in my dreams, the scene I see unfold_

_Two at last, flesh and blood, to cherish and to hold_

_Jealous fools will suffer, yes_

_I know and I confess_

_Once I lost my way when something good had just begun_

_Lesson learned, it’s history, when all is said and done_

 

They don’t see each other over the holidays, because their schedules conflict and she has to briefly be in Toronto while he’s needed back in Ilderton. It’s the longest amount of time they’ve spent apart since the trip to China — which is coincidentally when they decided to come back to ice dance. 

They text every day, sure, and call every other, but he finds he misses just being in her space, being close to her, hearing her voice and the steady sound of her breathing.

It’s as he’s lying in his childhood bedroom in Ilderton, staring up at the ceiling and willing himself to go to sleep, that his brain starts going back to the places he’s very expressly forbidden it from going to for years now. 

When he used to imagine his future, beyond skating, there had always been kids. At least two, most of the time three (two girls and a boy, when his dreams got especially vivid), all with chestnut hair and green eyes. Kids in tiny little ice skates, holding on to his hands as they skate shaky laps around a nondescript ice rink.

Sometimes, those kids have a mother too, who’s guiding one of them around. Very rarely does she have a face or any terribly recognizable features, but tonight he can see her, clear as day. She glides across the ice with speed and precision, her movements strong and sure.

She has chestnut hair, eyes as green as pine trees, and a smile he’d recognize from miles away. It’s Tessa. _Of course_ it’s Tessa.

It hits him like a lightning bolt, and he jolts awake, scrubbing a hand across his face. 

It could never be anyone but Tessa. 

_Holy shit, he’s in love with Tessa Virtue._

_(He wants to have_ children _with Tessa Virtue. This one goes on the back-burner for the time being, lest he get completely ahead of himself.)_

He’s been here before, grappling with this particular set of realizations, but never has he been in any position to actually act on them.

Canton, Marina, the Olympics, Fedor, Jess, Ryan, Cassandra, Kaitlyn, Skate Canada… the list of reasons why he should _not_ confess his love for his skating partner had been endless. (That hadn’t stopped them from landing in each other’s beds more than a handful of times over the past few years, but they’d always chalked it up to stress or nerves or anything besides the feelings they subconsciously harboured for one another.)

But now… now, he and Tessa are making their comeback on their own terms, exactly how they want to do it. For themselves and for each other. Not for someone else’s idea of what their journey to the Olympics is supposed to look like.

He tosses and turns for what feels like hours that night, grappling with newfound realizations and possibilities and no idea of what to do with them at all.

January rolls around, and with that, so does Scott’s inevitable return to training. He hugs his parents and his brothers and their families goodbye and sets off on the train ride back to Montreal. 

He’s been mulling the realization he had — _I’m in love with my skating partner who I’m trying to win another Olympics with_ — around in his head for days now, and he’s still nowhere near close to an idea of what he’ll tell her once he sees her again.

She’s picking him up at the train station (they carpooled there in her car in the first place, and she’s been back in Montreal for a day now) and he wonders if their reunion will be something out of a romcom or some other kind of cheesy movie. Those with the hugging and the spinning and the kissing — _the kissing sounds pretty good to him right about now._

He shakes his head and admonishes the non-rational side of his brain for even going there. It’s the part of his brain that got him in this whole mess in the first place. Instead of giving in to its whims, he puts on his earphones and listens to a hockey podcast for the rest of the train journey. 

In the end, their reunion is, well … a little bit like a romcom. 

_(His subconscious is extremely proud of that fact, does a little whoop and a cheer, and his rational brain is fuming.)_

When he steps off the platform in Montreal, his duffel bag in tow, it doesn’t take him more than a few minutes to spot her. She’s standing in a corner, wearing the same clothes she wears to the rink, her hair down in loose waves. She doesn’t notice him at first, but when their eyes meet, her face lights up and she breaks out into the biggest grin.

It’s contagious — he can’t help but grin too — and he walks over to her in a large, bounding strides. She meets him halfway, dodging a few grumbling travellers on her way, but then she’s just a few steps in front of him.

Much to his surprise, she launches herself at him in a hug so tight it nearly knocks him off his feet. He takes a step back to steady them, wrapping his arms tightly around her and burying his face in her neck. She smells like strawberries and vanilla and _home_.

“I missed you,” she mumbles, her words once again muffled by his jacket.

He presses a kiss to her hair. “Missed you too, kiddo.” _Missed you more than you could know._

When they break apart, it’s not for long. Tessa tucks herself into his side and he slings his duffel bag over his free shoulder. It’s in that configuration that they make their way back to her car, and he thinks it’s still the most natural thing in the world, to mould himself to the contours of her body.

They fit, like two pieces of a puzzle.

When they pull up to their apartment complex, he doesn’t even have to ask the question. They go to her apartment, because his fridge is still completely empty, and he gets to work making them dinner with the groceries she bought that morning.

She fills him in on how the Virtues are doing, tells him about her time in Toronto (and her tiny cameo in the Nutcracker, which, much to his chagrin, he hadn’t been able to see, damn schedules) and how she spent New Year’s.

He gets her up to date on all things Ilderton, from the Moirs to the skate shop to the rink, right down to Alma an Carol’s latest gossip about the new novice pairs.

They eat dinner together, accidentally playing footsie under the table, but neither seems to notice, or if they do, they don’t care enough to move their feet apart.

Dinner leads to a movie, which leads to Tessa curled up at his side on the sofa, which leads to his arm around her shoulder. Soon the end credits fade out to black, which leads to her yawning and him yawning too, which leads to her tipping her head to the side and looking at him, first at his lips, then at his eyes, then back again.

Suddenly, he’s not tired anymore. Not at all.

“Tess?” His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper; his eyes flit from hers to her lips, unsure.

“I made a New Year’s resolution, Scott,” she says, and he’s confused for a bit there, trying to make sense of her sudden change in topic. “I told myself I wouldn’t let second chances go to waste this year.”

_Oh._

When she presses her lips to his, he thinks this — and the comeback — might be the best second chances he’s taken in a while. 

 

_In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks_

_Slightly worn, but dignified, and not too old for sex_

_Clear-headed and open-eyed, with nothing left untried_

_Standing calmly at the crossroads, no desire to run_

_There’s no hurry anymore_

_When all is said and done_

 

Kissing Tessa is new and familiar all at once. It’s like bringing water to a dying man, like giving oxygen to someone floating in outer space. Kissing Tessa is all he’s ever wanted.

He fists his hands in her hair, just how he remembers she likes it, and she swings a leg over his lap so she can get better access. He gasps when she finds purchase in the ends of his hair and tugs, in combination with a strategic nip of his bottom lip. 

God, this woman is going to kill him with one perfectly-timed hip movement, he’s sure of it.

The need for oxygen catches up with them both after a few minutes, and they break apart, breathless. She angles her head down to rest her forehead against his, and he can practically feel her heartbeat thrumming in his chest.

“So we’re really doing this?” she asks.

Yeah, apparently they’re really doing this. No more almost-kisses, no more _platonic_ explanations for the complete lack of boundaries between them, no more pretending there was nothing happening when the spark had been back for months now.

“I think we are,” is all he manages before she dips down and takes his breath away again.

There’s a distinct lack of talking for a while then — beyond _yes_ and _more_ and _please_ and _ohh_ — which culminates in Tessa and Scott lying in her bed in a tangle of limbs and sheets.

Tessa shifts slightly so she can pillow her chin on his chest and look up at him as he traces lazy circles across her back and spine.

She lets out a contented hum and he watches as her eyes flutter closed for a second. She looks so peaceful and content, and he can feel warmth blooming deep in his chest at the sight.

_They did it. They finally made it._

Every time he thought of what it would be like when he and Tessa actually crossed that remaining line between them, he felt like it would be some big, revelatory experience.

In reality, lying here with her in his arms, he doesn’t feel very different at all. It just feels natural, to be with her like this, and he wonders idly if they put their potential relationship on a pedestal so high it nearly scared them off entirely.

“Maybe,” Tessa murmurs into his chest and he realizes belatedly that he said that out loud. “For the record,” she adds, pressing a kiss to his chest, “this feels right to me too.”

He pulls her closer and feels himself smile as he realizes their heartbeats have started synching. 

“Tess…” he starts, because now that she’s here, naked in bed with him, he needs to put it all out in the open. He needs them to be on the same page. Nothing left unsaid. 

She beats him to it.

“I’m in love with you, Scott.”

There they are, the magic words. She’s in love with him, he’s in love with her — he rushes out an “I love you too, so fucking much” before he’s kissing her again — and it’s finally out in the open, the air clear between them.

When he boils it all down, that’s the crux of it. He loves her and she loves him. It’s all that matters. What pace they set now is entirely up to them.

_There’s no hurry anymore,_ _when all is said and done._

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments make my day. Feel free to yell at me there, or on Tumblr, @good-things-come-in-threes, or Twitter, @_bucketofrice.


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